The qualities that make Lance a great champion are a mysterious blend of genetics, background, attitude, and behavior molded by years of life experience.There is simply nothing that can compromise Lance’s positive attitude and total focus on his goals.
One thing that becomes clear when you learn about Lance’s story is his total refusal to consider any alternative but the best: survival, perfect preparation, victory, good sportsmanship, total honesty, and giving to something bigger than himself in the cancer community.
Success Factor 1: Positive Attitude
Lance has an intensely positive attitude about life, the key to overcoming difficult circumstances like cancer and winning the toughest bike race in the world seven years in a row. He constantly maintains a winning environment for himself and everyone around him by choosing to interpret his past experiences and present circumstances in a positive manner.
Success Factor 2: Clarity of Purpose
Lance had a deep conviction and commitment to realize his potential as a cyclist, which resulted in his winning the Tour de France every year from 1999 through 2005. He was motivated by his love of cycling and desire to give his absolute best effort after surviving cancer and being given a second chance in life. In daily life, Lance consistently displayed the work ethic, focus, and prioritization skills that matched his clear life purpose every day. He was willing to make the tremendous sacrifices necessary to become a champion and prevent outside influences (competitors, the distractions of celebrity life, and so on) from impeding him.
Success Factor 3: Specialized Intelligence
Lance has extremely high intelligence narrowly applied and perfectly suited to his chosen endeavor as a pro cyclist. He developed his specialized intelligence by learning and improving from mistakes, cultivating an intuitive approach to training and life decisions, and adopting a big-picture perspective about his athletic goals to account for all performance variables.
Success Factor 4: Pure Confidence
Lance’s greatest source of confidence was “doing the work”—preparing fully and competing in high-pressure situations. He was focused on achieving peak performance and was not afraid to lose. This pure confidence transcends external variables that cause many to succumb to the negative influences of competitive pressure and the expectation of others.
From "How Lance Does It" by Brad Kearns
